Middle East F19

Middle East

Fall / Winter 2019

Cover image

forthcoming

A City in Fragments

Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem Yair Wallach

January 2020 312pp 9781503611139 £21.99 / $26.00 PB 9781503610033 £73.00 / $85.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

In the mid-nineteenth century, Jerusalem was rich with urban texts inscribed in marble, gold, and cloth, investing holy sites with divine meaning. Ottoman modernization and British colonial rule transformed the city; new texts became a key means to organize society and subjectivity.

Stone inscriptions, pilgrims’ graffiti, and sacred banners gave way to street markers, shop signs, identity papers, and visiting cards that each sought to define and categorize urban space and people. A City in Fragments tells the modern history of a city overwhelmed by its religious and symbolic significance. Yair Wallach walked the streets of Jerusalem to consider the graffiti, logos, inscriptions, official signs, and ephemera that transformed the city over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As these urban texts became a tool in the service of capitalism, nationalism, and colonialism, the affinities of Arabic and Hebrew were forgotten and these sister-languages found themselves locked in a bitter war. Looking at the writing of—and literally on— Jerusalem, Wallach offers a creative and expansive history of the city, a fresh take on modern urban texts, and a new reading of the Israel/Palestine conflict through its material culture.

Iran Reframed

Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic Narges Bajoghli

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures September 2019 184pp 9781503610293 £17.99 / $22.00 PB 9781503608849 £60.00 / $70.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

More than half of Iran’s citizens were not alive at the time of the 1979 Revolution. Now entering its fifth decade in power, the Iranian regime faces the paradox of any successful revolution: how to transmit the commitments of its political project to the next generation. Iran Reframed offers unprecedented access to those who wield power in Iran as they debate and define the future of the Republic. Over ten years, Narges Bajoghli met with men in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Ansar Hezbollah, and Basij paramilitary organizations to investigate how their media producers developed strategies to court Iranian youth. Readers come to know these men—what the regime means to them and their anxieties about the future of their revolutionary project.

Contestation over how to define the regime underlies all their efforts to communicate with the public. This book offers a multilayered story about what it means to be pro-regime in the Islamic Republic, challenging everything we think we know about Iran and revolution.

On the Sultan’s Service

Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Memoir of the Ottoman Palace, 1909–1912 Translated by Douglas Scott Brookes February 2020 352pp 9780253045515 £28.99 / $35.00 PB 9780253045508 £73.00 / $85.00 HB INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Translated into English for the first time, this memoir provides fascinating first-hand insight into the personalities, intrigues, and inner workings of the Ottoman palace in its final decades. Written by Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil, who was First Secretary to Sultan Mehmed V and would go on to be one of Turkey’s most famous novelists, On the Sultan’s Service makes available to English readers the remarkable account of life and work in the Ottoman palace chancery in its final incarnation. We learn of the court’s new role under this second-tolast Sultan in post-Revolution Turkey.

Uşaklıgil includes interviews with the Imperial family and descriptions of royal nuptials, the palaces and its visitors, and the crises that shook the court. He delivers an insightful and moving portrait of Mehmed V, the elderly gentleman who reigned over the Ottoman Empire through both Balkan Wars and World War I.

Books stocked at Marston Book Services Tel: +44 (0)1235 465500 | enquiries@combinedacademic.co.uk | www.combinedacademic.co.uk

The Excellence of the Arabs

Ibn Qutaybah Translated by Sarah Bowen Savant Edited and translated by Peter Webb Edited by James E. Montgomery Library of Arabic Literature September 2019 224pp 9781479899265 £12.99 / $16.00 NIP NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Excellence of the Arabs is a spirited defense of Arab identity—its merits, values, and origins—at a time of political unrest and fragmentation, written by one of the most important scholars of the early Abbasid era. In the cosmopolitan milieu of Baghdad, the social prestige attached to claims of being Arab had begun to decline.

Although his own family originally hailed from Merv in the east, Ibn Qutaybah (213-76 H/828-89 AD) locks horns with those members of his society who belittled Arabness and vaunted the glories of Persian heritage and culture. The Excellence of the Arabs is in two parts. In the first, Arab Preeminence, Ibn Qutaybah accuses his opponents of blasphemous envy. In the second, The Excellence of Arab Learning, he describes the fields of knowledge in which he believed preIslamic Arabians excelled. Eloquent and forceful, The Excellence of the Arabs addresses a central question at a time of great social flux at the dawn of classical Muslim civilization: what did it mean to be Arab?

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

A Man of the Theater Survival as an Artist in Iran Nasser Rahmaninejad

November 2019 320pp 1 b&w illus.

9781613321102 £17.99 / $21.95 PB NEW VILLAGE PRESS

Slides for the magic or optical lantern were a major tool for knowledge transfer in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. This volume brings together scholarly research on the educational uses of the optical lantern in different disciplines by international specialists, representing the state of the art of magic lantern research today.

Acting Egyptian

Theater, Identity, and Political Culture in Cairo, 1869–1930 Carmen M. K. Gitre

December 2019 240pp 5 b&w photos, 1 map 9781477319185 £43.00 / $50.00 HB UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

Putting the spotlight on theatrical performance and cultural identity in Cairo at the turn of the twentieth century—during the “protectorate” period of British occupation in Egypt— Carmen M. K. Gitre reveals new aspects of the transition from the Ottoman to the British regimes on Egypt’s path to self-rule.

Egypt’s Beer

Imperial Bodies

Stella, Identity, and the Modern State Omar D. Foda

December 2019 296pp 19 b&w photos 9781477319550 £28.99 / $34.95 PB 9781477319543 £90.00 / $105.00 HB UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

Although alcohol is generally forbidden in Muslim countries, beer has been an important part of Egyptian identity for much of the last century. This is the lively story of an iconic beer brand, whose tumultuous business history illuminates the cultural transformations of Egypt over the last century.

Empire and Death in Alexandria, Egypt Shana Minkin

November 2019 224pp 9781503608924 £52.00 / $60.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Minkin investigates how French and British power asserted itself in Egypt through local consular claims of belonging manifested within the mundane caring for dead bodies. This book reveals how European imperial powers did not so much claim Alexandria as their own, as they maneuvered, manipulated, and cajoled their empires into Egypt.

Arab Routes

Pathways to Syrian California Sarah Gualtieri

Stanford Studies in Comparative Race and Ethnicity November 2019 208pp 9781503610859 £19.99 / $24.00 PB 9781503606173 £69.00 / $80.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Arab Routes uncovers the stories of the Syrian American community, one both Arabized and Latinized, to reveal important cross-border and multiethnic solidarities in Syrian California. Gualtieri counters a longheld stereotype of Arabs as outsiders and underscores their longstanding place in American culture and in interethnic coalitions, past and present.

Axis of Hope

Iranian Women’s Rights Activism across Borders Catherine Z. Sameh Series edited by Piya Chatterjee

Decolonizing Feminisms December 2019 192pp 9780295746326 £23.99 / $30.00 PB 9780295746302 £79.00 / $95.00 HB UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS

In Axis of Hope author Catherine Sameh examines how Iranian women’s rights activists have cultivated ways of thinking of and being with each other that rupture the relentless differencemaking and violence of coloniality through local and transnational networks along axes of feminist solidarity, friendship, and love.

Insurgent Aesthetics

Light in the Heavens

Art History Publication Initiative October 2019 352pp 93 illus, incl. 26 color 9781478004011 £24.99 / $28.95 PB 9781478003717 £92.00 / $104.95 HB

Library of Arabic Literature November 2019 192pp 9781479864485 £11.99 / $15.00 NIP

Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War Ronak K Kapadia

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Ronak K. Kapadia examines multimedia visual art by artists from societies besieged by the US War on Terror, showing how their art offers queer feminist critiques of US global warfare that forge new aesthetic and social alliances with which to sustain critical opposition to the global war machine.

Sayings of the Prophet Muhammad al-Qadi al-Quda’I Edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

Assembling Muhammad’s words has been a major preoccupation for scholars throughout the fourteen centuries since his death, resulting in an abundance of compilations. One which stands out in particular is Light in the Heavens (Kitab al-Shihab) by alQadi al-Quda’i (d. 454/1062), a Shafi’i judge in the Fatimid court in Egypt.

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

Cover image forthcoming

Mental Health and Palestinian Citizens in Israel

Politics of Rightful Killing

Indiana Series in Middle East Studies September 2019 440pp 9780253043078 £43.00 / $50.00 PB 9780253043061 £86.00 / $100.00 HB

January 2020 304pp 13 illus.

9781478006657 £24.99 / $27.95 PB 9781478005964 £92.00 / $104.95 HB

Edited by Muhammad M Haj-Yahia, Ora Nakash & Itzhak Levav

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

The work collected here draws on the first-hand experience of experts working with Israeli Palestinians to highlight the problems faced by service users, their families, and their communities. It offers research and observation on three central topics: socio-cultural determinants of mental health, mental health needs, and mental health service utilization.

The Media World of ISIS Edited by Michael Krona & Rosemary Pennington

Indiana Series in Middle East Studies November 2019 352pp 9780253045928 £34.00 / $40.00 PB 9780253045911 £69.00 / $80.00 HB INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

From efficient instructions on how to kill civilians to horrifying videos of beheadings, no terrorist organization has more comprehensively weaponized social media than ISIS. The Media World of ISIS explores the characteristics, mission, and tactics of the organization’s use of media and propaganda.

Spiritual Subjects

Civil Society, Gender, and Sexuality in Weblogistan Sima Shakhsari

Central Asian Pilgrims and the Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire Lale Can

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

January 2020 256pp 9781503611160 £20.99 / $25.00 PB 9781503610170 £73.00 / $85.00 HB

The Discourses

Reflections on History, Sufism, Theology, and Literature—Volume One Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan al-Yusi Edited and translated by Justin Stearns Library of Arabic Literature January 2020 372pp 9780814764572 £28.99 / $35.00 HB

Sima Shakhsari analyzes the growth of Weblogistan—the online and real-life transnational network of Iranian bloggers in the early 2000s—and the ways in which despite being an effective venue for Iranians to pursue their political agendas, it was the site for surveillance, cooptation, and selfgovernance.

Spiritual Subjects examines the paradoxes of nationality reform and pan-Islamic politics in late Ottoman history. This panoramic story informs broader transregional and global developments, with important implications for how we make sense of subjecthood in the last Muslim empire and the legacy of religion in the Turkish Republic.

Translated into English for the first time, The Discourses offers readers access to the intellectual landscape of the early modern Muslim world through an author who speaks openly and frankly about his personal life and his relationships with his country’s rulers, scholars, and commoners.

The Movement and the Middle East

The Philosopher Responds Volume One

The Philosopher Responds Volume Two

How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left Michael R. Fischbach

November 2019 296pp 9781503611061 £21.99 / $26.00 PB 9781503610446 £73.00 / $85.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Fischbach offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. As the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

An Intellectual Correspondence from the Tenth Century, Volume One Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi & Abu ‘Ali Miskawayh

An Intellectual Correspondence from the Tenth Century, Volume Two Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi & Abu ‘Ali Miskawayh

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

Edited by Bilal Orfali & Maurice A. Pomerantz Translated by Sophia Vasalou & James E. Montgomery Library of Arabic Literature October 2019 336pp 9781479871483 £34.00 / $40.00 HB

The Philosopher Responds is the record of a set of questions put by the litterateur Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi to the philosopher and historian Abu ‘Ali Miskawayh.

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

Edited by Bilal Orfali & Maurice A. Pomerantz Translated by Sophia Vasalou & James E. Montgomery Library of Arabic Literature October 2019 372pp 9781479834600 £34.00 / $40.00 HB

The Philosopher Responds is the record of a set of questions put by the litterateur Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi to the philosopher and historian Abu ‘Ali Miskawayh.

Excludes SE Asia & ANZ

The Scandal of Continuity in Middle East Anthropology Form, Duration, Difference Edited by Judith Scheele & Andrew Shryock

Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa October 2019 284pp 9780253043795 £28.99 / $35.00 PB 9780253043764 £73.00 / $85.00 HB

The Universal Enemy

Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity Darryl Li

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures December 2019 336pp 9781503610873 £24.99 / $30.00 PB 9780804792370 £77.00 / $90.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Despite a rich history of ethnographic research in Middle Eastern societies, the region is frequently portrayed as marginal to anthropology. The contributors to this volume reject this view and show how the Middle East is in fact vital to the discipline.

This book argues that transnational jihadists are engaged in their own form of universalism: these fighters struggle to realize an Islamist vision directed at all of humanity. Developed from more than a decade of research with former fighters, Li explores the relationship between jihad and American empire to shed critical light on both.

Yiddish in Israel

Recent Highlights

Perspectives on Israel Studies January 2020 280pp 9780253045157 £34.00 / $40.00 PB 9780253045140 £82.00 / $95.00 HB

The Life and Art of David Ohannessian Sato Moughalian

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

A History Rachel Rojanski

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Yiddish in Israel challenges the commonly held view that Yiddish was suppressed or even banned by Israeli authorities for ideological reasons, offering instead a radical new interpretation of the interaction between Yiddish and Israeli Hebrew cultures. Rojanski tells the yet unknown story of how Yiddish, the most widely used Jewish language in the pre-Holocaust world, fared in Zionist Israel, the land of Hebrew.

Feast of Ashes

April 2019 440pp 9781503601932 £24.99 / $30.00 HB STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

This is the story of David Ohannessian, the renowned ceramicist whose life encompassed some of the most tumultuous upheavals of the modern Middle East, and yet, in 1919 he founded the art of Armenian pottery in Jerusalem, where his work and that of his followers is celebrated as a local treasure.

Violence and Militants

Waste Siege

September 2019 272pp 6 maps, 2 tables 9780773558694 £27.99 / $34.95 HB

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures December 2019 336pp 9781503610897 £22.99 / $28.00 PB 9781503607309 £77.00 / $90.00 HB

From Ottoman Rebellions to Jihadist Organizations Baris Cayli MCGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS

How do militants rationalize violence and what are their motives? How do time and space shape their destiny?

Cayli explores these questions by comparing violent episodes in towns and villages from the nineteenthcentury to today. Breaking new ground, this is the first book to address this complex relationship across different periods of history.

Excludes Asia Pacific

Spaceship in the Desert

Energy, Climate Change, and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi Gökçe Günel Experimental Futures March 2019 272pp 31 illus 9781478000914 £22.99 / $25.95 PB 9781478000723 £88.00 / $99.95 HB DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Gökçe Günel examines the development and construction of Masdar City, a zero-carbon city built by Abu Dhabi that houses a research institute for renewable energy which implemented a series of green technologies and infrastructures as a way to deal with climate change and prepare for a post-oil future.

The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Waste Siege depicts the environmental, infrastructural, and aesthetic context in which Palestinians are obliged to forge their lives.

Stamatopoulou-Robbins considers how multiple authorities governing the West Bank rule by waste siege, whether intentionally or not. Waste Siege thus not only describes a stateless Palestine, but also becomes a metaphor for our besieged planet.

Statecraft by Stealth

Secret Intelligence and British Rule in Palestine Steven B. Wagner July 2019 336pp 3 b&w halftones, 3 maps, 2 charts 9781501736476 £34.00 / $39.95 HB CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

Britain relied upon secret intelligence operations to rule Mandatory Palestine. Emphasizing the role of the Anglo-Zionist partnership, which began during World War I and ended in 1939, Statecraft by Stealth sheds light on a time in history when the murky triad of intelligence, policy, and security supported colonial governance.

Excludes ANZ